Family Encyclopedia >> Food

7 mistakes we make (far) too often in the kitchen

Eating is great, cooking is sometimes a little less so, especially when we char our meats, reduce our vegetables to a pulp and our guests make a weird face tasting our risotto. Many mistakes that could be avoided if we tried (from time to time) to be patient and diligent.

1/ Overload the pan

To go faster, we sometimes tend to put everything in the pan, even if it is shielded. Result:the food is not well cooked and sometimes even a little rubbery. Moisture accumulated in the pan needs to escape. Let's let our bibs breathe!

2/ Cook the meat right out of the fridge

Again, for the sake of time, we don't give our meat time to return to room temperature after taking it out of the fridge. However, it is vital if you want it to taste the best possible (if you cut it immediately, it loses its juice and dries up). So, we take out the meat and we go (at your choice) to take a shower, to vacuum, to take a short tour of the Biba site… It takes at least 5 minutes for a meat and 20 minutes for a roast or a poultry .

3/ Do not taste the dishes while cooking

Race results? Too salty or too spicy:the dish is good for the trash and we only have our eyes to cry. And this, even if we followed the recipe to the letter (or we think so). It's not Paul Bocuse who wants!

4/ Use the pan without preheating it

We've all had that moment when our ground beef sticks to the pan and we want to cry. To avoid this catastrophe (painful for our gourmet hearts), we let our pan preheat for several minutes before putting the food in it.

5/ Stir food constantly

No, turning the meat in the pan 15 times in 30 seconds will not get us into the record books. To enjoy good, well-cooked meat, it is best to be patient and cook over low heat for several minutes, on each side.

6/ Cooking vegetables too long

Unlike meat:vegetables, we tend to forget them in boiling water (perhaps because we are less in a hurry to eat them…). Except that we find ourselves eating mashed carrots when we wanted very crunchy Vichy carrots:the best thing is still to pass them under cold water at the end of cooking.

7/ Cut the meat the wrong way

Cutting meat is an art and we don't joke with art:it is absolutely necessary to place the knife perpendicular to the fibers of the meat (=the long threads that go in the same direction). This “breaks the fibers” and ensures that the meat will be melt-in-the-mouth. And we prefer to work with a knife with a long blade and without teeth.